Moser Baer Entertainment, the wholly-owned subsidiary of optical disc maker Moser Baer, has seen its business slow down in the past three months.
April is the time when the holiday season begins and most movies are released. This generally means brisk sales, since the film entertainment market is driven by new films/content. Video releases follow theatre releases and for Moser Baer, catalogue consumption comprises around 20 per cent and the rest is new content consumption.
However, this time around, the stand-off between Hindi film producers and exhibitors who operate multiplexes has soured the scene, with no new releases. The ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL) cricket matches and general elections (now concluded) also acted as diversions and hurt the entire value chain of film production and distribution, explained Harish Dayani, chief executive (Entertainment Division), Moser Baer.
The company’s two home productions — Sankat City and Gharaunda — have also been held up because of this stand-off, due to which it has lost around 5 per cent of the total cost of these films. “The stand-off must end for the industry to prosper again. If there is no new content, sales of home videos will be further affected,” Dayani added.
The company, meanwhile, says its Super DVDs priced at Rs 45 to “enable consumers to buy legitimate content that has quality at really low prices” are doing well. Super DVDs have three films on one DVD and are available in more than 1,000 stores across the country. The company says that though new content is more expensive than catalogue content, the consumer buys it at a lower price because huge volumes are involved — the Rs 34 and Rs 45 price points are for mass consumption, while the Rs 99 and Rs 149 formats (full interactivity, loaded DVDs) are for big cities.
Moser Baer’s foray into entertainment was built on three pillars — setting up a catalogue content, bringing down the price points by setting up large distribution systems and, third, to put new content in the catalogue. “Initially, new content was not available for the right prices and then these short term issues cropped up. Super DVDs can bring about a basic change in the market and is a growth area for us,” said Yogesh B Mathur, Moser Baer’s Group CFO.
